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Monday, April 30, 2012

It seems that the term "Little [insert country name]" is used with abandon to describe places in New York where immigrants from a given nation settled on arrival. Hence you have Little Poland, Little Italy and Little Germany. It is the spirit of that naming convention that I think Nelson County, with a bit of Albemarle County thrown in, here in Virginia should be given the name "Little Lager Land".

On Saturday, Mrs V and I decided we would head out to Blue Mountain Brewery as the brewer there had told me that they now had their new maibock available. Blue Mountain is very, very popular and knowing that we hate crowds, Mrs V suggested going for opening time. Having stationed ourselves at the bar, Mrs V asked for samples of the Classic Lager and their summer seasonal "Summer Loving", a hazing wheaty looking thing that was refreshing and clean, it was almost a shame it was pissing down. I had come for just one beer, Maggie Maibock.

As you can see from the picture it is a nice deep golden colour, though with no much head. Something that baffles me is bars that serve you beer with no head. I won't bore you to tears with tasting notes, suffice to say that it was big, sweet and a touch boozy - basically everything you expect from a maibock, and it seemed to suit the pouring rain much better than Mrs V's Summer Loving.

Pints polished off we headed down to Wild Wolf Brewing as we had not been before. Wild Wolf, as a brewpub, has only been going for about 6 months and as such I won't write too much here about their beer, other than there is potential there and Mrs V commented on the Alpha Ale that it would be much better if it had more body to balance the hops.

Having had the sample equivalent of a couple of pints, we were getting hungry and as we were in the area we popped by Devils Backbone, for the first time in a few months. Again stationed at the bar, a couple of Vienna lagers were soon in front of us, followed, in my case, by a 1949 Lager, a pale lager based on a period recipe, and not bad it was. I finished up abandoning lagers though for a Ramsey's Draft Stout.

There are many moments here that I am very happy for the local breweries and the fact that they have lagers at the very heart of their offerings. Blue Mountain's Classic Lager and Devils Backbone Vienna are two of my favourite beers and in general both breweries do lager well, which naturally makes me a cheerful chap on a rainy day.

1 comment:

True lagers, well made lagers in this country are do difficult to come by. Well done seeking out a few. I will say, Victory and Sly Fox and Stoudts in Pennsylvania have always held my heart. As has Penn Brewing in Pittsburgh.